Hilde Johnson: Protectionism in rich countries costs developing countries billions File photo by JASON REED
LONDON (AlertNet) - Humanitarian and development agencies have been urged to step up their advocacy role to defend the poor, demonstrate the effectiveness of aid, promote development goals promoted for the millennium and ensure an international response to conflicts and crises.
A series of speakers at the InterAction Forum -- a meeting of the U.S. network of aid agencies -- in Washington DC this month called for more time, effort and resources to be spent communicating the reality of the challenges and confrontations in the developing world to a global audience.
Shashi Tharoor, under-secretary-general for communications and public information at the United Nations, said: "The great challenge before us today is how to secure the commitment of a divided world community to our efforts, at a time when Iraq has proved to be a weapon of mass distraction."
He called for a U.N.-NGO partnership to convince the international community of the need for action in both development and disasters.
Patty Stonesifer, co-chair and president of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, urged NGOs to produce and promote evidence that aid was effective.
Norway&${esc.hash}39;s minister of international development, Hilde Johnson, said that as well as delivering assistance, NGOs had a "pivotal role of advocacy on behalf of the poor in rich countries".
Johnson said states of the United Nations had committed themselves at a summit in 2000 to targets -- known as the Millennium Development Goals -- to sharply improve wealth, health and education by 2015. However, she said: "We need not only committed governments, but also dedicated partners in civil society. The role of the NGOs is crucial, not only in delivery, but also advocacy and in being watchdogs in relation to all the commitments."
There was much NGOs could not do, such as build functioning states, governments and public sectors, but they should use advocacy to work on many fronts, such as the international framework conditions for debt reduction, trade and investment.
PROTECTIONISM COSTS BILLIONS
Johnson said: "For most of the developing countries, this is more important than development aid in itself. Protectionism in rich countries costs developing countries between ${esc.dollar}100-150 billion per year, at least twice the amount they receive through development cooperation."
NGO watchdog work was needed to help developing countries improve their policies and governance, and Johnson said there was "a clear case for NGO advocacy" over the quality and quantity of overseas aid, which needed to double to ${esc.dollar}100 billion a year if the millennium goals were to be reached.
Highlighting two threats to development -- the HIV/AIDS pandemic and conflict -- she added that massive humanitarian relief operations were commendable but divert resources from long-term sustainable development and do not address the underlying causes of conflict, which were often poverty and the struggle over natural resources.
"We need NGOs to paint the picture of the world in such a way that people understand the nature of the daunting task we are facing. Talk to Congress, talk to the administration, and tell people about what we need to do in order for us to win the battle against poverty together," urged Johnson.
That view was endorsed by Patty Stonesifer of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which is investing heavily in health care, especially vaccine research and distribution.
She said: "All the foundations and all the NGOs don&${esc.hash}39;t have enough money to make the lasting change we want to see in the world. We need the power of the public and private sectors working with us, and there is only one way to get it: bring 21st century advances in medicine, information, and education to people most in need.
"Bring hard evidence that these approaches are saving lives to the right audiences in business and government. Then prove to them that it will advance their financial and political interests to expand and sustain our work. That is advocacy.
WAR DIVERTS RESOURCES
"We need to make that case to others - to get them to believe that change is within reach, and to give us the support and the resources we need. We need more evidence. The most common charge against our work is that the money is wasted. Without our own evidence, we have no way to prove the sceptics and the naysayers wrong. The burden of proof is on us."
The United Nations&${esc.hash}39; Shashi Tharoor said he was "convinced that today&${esc.hash}39;s challenges can be undertaken successfully only if the United Nations deepens the remarkable partnerships that we now have with the NGO community."
He warned: "Scarce resources continue to be diverted from social programmes to war and national security expenditures. The United Nations and its development partners are forced to re-channel human and financial resources from long-term development efforts to cope with humanitarian disasters caused in large part by man-made conflicts."
Tharoor commended NGO determination to maintain the principles of independence and impartiality central to both the United Nations and relief groups, and to demand a clear separation of humanitarian assistance operations from the military campaign both during and after the major fighting in Iraq.
Calling for more attention on the many other crises underway, from Afghanistan to the Balkans, East Timor to the Palestinian territories and Liberia, he said: "We at the United Nations are acutely aware of these emergencies. You in the NGO community are acutely aware of these emergencies. We must work together to ensure the media, donor countries, and the public are mobilised to ensure an adequate international response.
"Afghanistan, for example, is now largely absent from our TV screens and newspapers -- a shift in focus that has occurred long before security and normality has returned for the Afghan people. The magnitude of the needs of this country remains immense."
LINKSInterAction: http://www.interaction.org/
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation: http://www.gatesfoundation.org/default.htm
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